1. Baklava
I've been learning how to make this stuff and The Pioneer Woman's got a killer recipe for it. I tweaked it a bit and used more butter, but in spite of the tweaks, I think Ree would be proud. How can you go wrong with more butter? My thoughts exactly.
The secret is local, unfiltered honey. It's denser flavor adds a great depth to the baklava.
Goodness, I'm craving it now.
Good thing I have a pan of it in my kitchen.
2. Kisses from Katie
Last weekend while waiting for my friend to meet me at Applebee's I started reading this book. Let me just say that God is all over this book. When you almost start crying in a booth at an every day restaurant in the US, you know that you need to keep reading. Here's one of my favorite quotes...it's found in the foreward.
"...they simply pay attention to the everyday needs of others, even if it's only one person." p. XI
3. Little House on the Prairie
We are somewhat addicted. Last summer while trekking through garage sales I happened upon the DVD series for seasons 1 and 2 for a whopping $2 each. I know, score!
{picture me, saying this while doing a fist pump}
I held them captive until Zahara's birthday in December and then unleashed the
prairie fever...
we are on season four and
dang, I had forgotten how much I disliked Nellie and her mother.
4. Lice
Eeew, yuck, gross! I know.
We had lice back in November.
We went through all the procedures and bagged up all the fluffy
animals and pillows and put them away.
They're supposed to stay bagged up for a month,
but I couldn't resist...
I left them bagged up for almost three months.
I finally brought them out last week.
Just yesterday I said something along the lines of "Wow, I haven't bought any of those since before the baby was born." Goodness, it's been a year. We celebrated with a party that was an epic fail and double ear infections a week or two later. As we speak she is grasping my leg for balance while practicing her standing skills. I'm in trouble with four mobile kids.
6. The Civil Wars
One of my friends told me about them, somewhat indirectly through facebook.
I love them now. Wow, haunting and lyrical, this group is sure to be a favorite for a long time.
7. Injuries
Ana looks like she was in The Hunger Games. She fell off the couch and got into a fight with her brother's remote control SUV. She won, though the SUV got a good scratch in.
No wonder the strange lady was overbearing and annoying about my daughter's falling out of the cart. Goodness.
8. The Plague
The plague hit. Not the Bubonic, but the stomach plague and then the sore throat sickness. All of us, including the Dad were down for the count over the course of a week. I'll spare you the gory details, but we're all feeling much better!
9. Planning
I'm planning for next month and I've got a to-do list a mile long. Here's my top three goals...
1) Kids and me, outside, 15 minutes a day;
walking in and out of stores/loading and unloading the cars does not count. (Is it obvious that I hate taking kids out in the winter?)
2) Finishing my #1 big writing project which needs to be 50% finished by Mar 1
with the remaining 50% due Mar 10. Eeek!
3) Finishing my #2 writing project. I'm hoping to finish it by Mar 31.
I'll unveil it soon, but frankly, I'm scared out of my mind.
It's a good place to be.
10. Pizza Night
As a single mom evenings are pretty monotonous.
You make dinner, feed it to the kids, they fight like mad because they don't like it,
then they go crazy and you try to wrangle them into bed.
If your kids eat all their dinner and then beg to go to sleep,
please, don't make me feel badly in the comments.
So, to combat the monotony, a friend and I have monthly pizza nights (her hubby works odd hours).
There were seven kids, ages 8, 7, 6, 4, 2, 2 and 1 as well as two adults...I'll spare you our ages.
What did you do in February?
I'd love to hear about it!
